Opera singing nine-year-old wins Holland's Got Talent

1 November 2013, 12:41 | Updated: 18 September 2014, 15:50

Puccini's 'Nessun dorma' propelled Amira Willighagen into the show's finale where she was crowned the overall winner.

In her first appearance on the show, nine-year-old Amira Willighagen stunned the judges by singing an aria usually reserved for older, trained voices, Puccini's 'O mio babbino caro'. The footage quickly became one of the viral videos of 2013, amassing over 13 million views on YouTube. 

Now the new internet sensation has been crowned the winner of the Holland's Got Talent series. In the finale she turned again to Puccini, singing an arrangement of his famous tenor aria 'Nessun Dorma'. She received over 50% of the television viewers' votes to win first place over the seven other contestants.

Willighagen revealed she's never had a singing lesson in her life - she was inspired to teach herself to compete with her brother. "My brother Vincent plays violin, and I also wanted to do something, so I thought, I'm going to sing. And then I heard opera songs, which I found very beautiful and that's when I started singing," she said.